(AP)—The unique bird and reptile species that make the Galapagos Islands a treasure for scientists and tourists must be preserved, Chilean authorities say—and that means the rats must die, hundreds of millions of them.

(Phys.org)—Rats' keen sense of smell can be exploited to dramatically reduce their attacks on native birds, researchers from the University of Sydney have shown. The technique could be adapted to protect vulnerable species ...

Indigenous (ecology)

In biogeography, a species is defined as indigenous or native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural resources, with no human intervention. Every natural organism (as opposed to a domesticated organism) has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native. Outside this native range, a species may be introduced by human activity; it is then referred to as an introduced species within the regions where it was anthropogenically introduced.

An indigenous species is not necessarily endemic. In biology and ecology, endemic means exclusively native to the biota of a specific place. An indigenous species may occur in more than one locale.

The terms endemic and indigenous do not imply that an organism necessarily originated or evolved where it is found.